My mom wasn’t poor, it was just a bit sad that she didn’t have a normal child in me.

Even sadder was that she didn’t have another amazing child like my little brother Ryan, she had me instead.

Everyone needs a little context and I had a gift for bringing context.

One day she was enjoying a quiet moment and then had the thought one has when making the strategic error of relaxing with a Corey in the house: “Where’s Corey and why is he being quiet????”

She heard a psht noise and then quiet giggling. Her eye involuntarily twitched.

Not good y’all. Not good.

I’d found a sharp knife (also not good) and was “letting the air out” of her brand new dinette chair set. Think 70’s dinette chairs cruelly keeping captive AIR? Seven or eight holes per chair out to do it eh?

Was this my fault? I don’t feel like it was. Granted I’ve always been fast and destructive, but aren’t we here to enjoy life? Slow down! Stab some holes in chairs, take your time and laugh a little! Here mom! Grab a knife and start stabbin!

My mom admitted to me years later that she wasn’t really crazy about the colour of the dinette set in the first place and I didn’t get the punishment the crime deserved because she got the set she wanted.

You’re welcome mom!

If she had watched the credits at the end of the chair slashing movie she’d have caught the prequel where the same knife had first been tested on the window screens outside, but she didn’t.

Raising a Corey is a bit of a waking nightmare. Now to be fair I was never a mean little sneak like some kids are (you know, that kid on your block that’s always smiling at you weird?) I was generous and had a big heart. But I was insatiably curious.

Besides, Einstein probably slashed his mom’s chairs too. Maybe I’m secretly a genius? One can never tell.

I was a black and white child. Right was right and wrong was wrong and I had no problem deciding that for myself and everyone around me.

When we lived in LA my mom caught me asking the neighbour man sitting on his porch drinking beer “Now what kind of example are you for a boy like me??”

(Insert proper punishment here:)

Was there anything particularly wrong with sitting on his porch drinking beer? No, but being wrong’s never stopped me from doing something stupid fast. Maybe I felt like he could be doing more with his life? I always did want the best for people. You’re welcome everybody!

I remember being very helpful walking with mom.

“Mom, can I push Ryan’s carriage, like right now??”

Maybe it was my optimistic smile or the glint in my eye or the fact that we’d just arrived at the top of a big hill and I was curious how fast babies could go in carriages? Who’s to say?

Did she say yes? No. Einstein’s mom would’ve said yes… Probably why he discovered the theory of relativity before I did…

Don’t even bother saying that happened before I was born. Don’t even.

If my Ryan-pushing experiment had worked and we’d hit 88 mph I’ll bet that carriage could have been a Time Machine and changed everything forever.

Imagine going back in time and telling your boss you quit the moment before you got fired?

Talk about quality of life!

No, I decided to forego my inevitable time travel breakthrough not because I wasn’t smart enough to solve it but because of moral reasons:

99% of people would just buy winning lotto tickets, but people who win lottos and don’t budget properly lose all the money anyways and I have no problem helping people make the right decision by deciding their decision FOR them, which is what brilliant geniuses do!

Starting to get the feel of what raising Corey was like y’all?

Next time you see my mom just give her a long hug and say “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

She’d just smile and say “I didn’t either, but oh did we have fun!”